


what do you say (when you love each other)?

by Irratia



Category: Julie and The Phantoms (TV)
Genre: Alex Mercer Has Anxiety (Julie and the Phantoms), Discussions about Anxiety, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Idiots in Love, M/M, a lot of salt at willie antis and people who romanticize anxiety, daz it, idk really, some funky fresh queer hijinks, some kithes, sorta - Freeform, these are really only barely connected stories, uuuhhhh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-14
Updated: 2021-01-14
Packaged: 2021-03-12 08:34:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28757415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Irratia/pseuds/Irratia
Summary: They have been officially dating for no more than a week and a half, when Alex can’t not bring it up anymore.They’ve been dating for three months and two days, and things are going well, Willie thinks.It’s been almost an entire year since they’ve started dating and things are going. Well. They're going.It’s been two and a half years since they started dating, and things are going great.akaWillie and Alex's relationship and four explanations, over time.
Relationships: Alex Mercer/Willie (Julie and The Phantoms), Julie Molina/Luke Patterson/Reggie Peters, Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Comments: 33
Kudos: 138





	what do you say (when you love each other)?

**Author's Note:**

> hi! hello! welcome!  
> this is a tiny little fic that had multiple identity crisis while being written, but now it's basically a collection of four short stories about willex explaining stuff to each other held together by a very, very loose connecting threat and sheer power of me convincing myself of that.  
> warnings: the first part deals with Anxiety and contains discussions about it based on the author's (my) personal experience, and it'll feature again later, as in a character having a anxiety attack  
> CREDIT for the Tommy bit (you'll get it) and people not kissing each other - basically all the salt about romanticizing anxiety, all the credit goes to Meg/A_Tomb_With_A_View, because she's been one of the biggest inspirations for me in writing, and this specifically, so check out her writing!!!
> 
> title is from "What Do You Say" by Team Starkid for Black Friday because I listened to it while uploading so have fun

i.  
They have been officially dating for no more than a week and a half, when Alex can’t not bring it up anymore.  
Things are, well, not perfect because Caleb is still very much at large and Willie still doesn’t have his soul back, but neither Alex nor Luke and Reggie are stamped and in constant danger of being jolted out of existence anymore. And they can touch Julie now, and he feels mostly at peace for the first time in a while.  
He has a boyfriend, an amazing, loveable, kind and understanding boyfriend in Willie, who offers him soft smiles and light kisses in the middle of the night when neither of them can sleep, and Luke and Reggie ignore their feelings and curl up together on the couch. 

Willie has shown him that he at least somewhat knows how to deal with Alex’s anxiety, but he hasn’t seen it get bad yet. Hasn’t seen Alex’s body get so tense it hurts the day after, or the way he digs his nails into his palms, even if it doesn’t leave marks like it used to. Alex hasn’t lashed out at him yet, or sobbed so hard he can’t breathe, or really shown more than light anxiety in front of him. 

And he feels like he needs for Willie to know all of this, before they actually, really, get serious, and Alex catches deeper and more intense feelings. Because Willie may say he gets that Alex has anxiety, but he doesn’t know the extent of it yet. And Alex isn’t really too keen on repeating the experiences of thinking he can trust someone not to abandon or be annoyed by him because of it.

The memory of Tommy across the street back in the days where he was alive and terrified of looking at boys too long if his parents were watching is still too fresh in his mind to not feel nervous about this thing with Willie. Because Tommy had said it wasn’t a problem Alex got nervous fast and had days where he couldn’t go outside without feeling like he couldn’t breathe. He’d taken Alex’s face in his hands and said he’d be fine, and then Alex had had a panic attack and Tommy had tried to help him, and instead of fucking listening to what Alex had begged him to do between gasping breaths and heaving sobs, the fucking asshole had kissed him.  
They’d been over pretty quickly after that.  
Bobby had tripped Tommy in the hallway on accident and one morning Alex had woken up to see Tommy’s house splattered with eggs, and Luke and Reggie had greeted him with freshly made egg sandwiches at band practice and grinned at him.  
Alex hadn’t even liked Tommy from across the street that much, it was mostly just the thrill of knowing another gay guy from church, and them flocking together, but it had still hurt, when the acceptance and help he’d hoped for had been less than that.  
And Alex doesn’t want a repeat of that with Willie.

“You know you can just tell him, right?” Luke offers, sprawled on the couch with his head in Reggie’s lap, while Julie sits on one of the couches arms softly strumming his guitar. Alex is pacing, frantically spinning one of his drumsticks between the fingers of his right hand.

“Yeah, I mean, I’m pretty sure Willie isn’t like Tommy, but you being honest doesn’t hurt. It helped us a fuckton in figuring out how to help you,” Reggie agrees. Julie nods, her eyes focusing on Alex, but he’s seen her gaze flick over to the other boys a lot in the last 30 minutes. It’s absolutely unbelievable they’re all so oblivious.

“And if Willie is a dick, which I doubt, because he’s literally the sweetest person on earth apart from Reggie, it’s better to know that from the beginning, isn’t it?” she asks, leaning back a bit, her fingers stilling over the guitar’s strings when Reggie buries his hand deeper into the unruly mop of Luke’s hair. 

Alex stops pacing for a moment. “I- yeah, I guess. I’m just-.”

“Scared, I know,” the other three say in unison. “It’ll be fine, I promise,” Julie adds. 

Willie walks through the studio doors at this exact moment, and Alex’s already dead heart stops, because he doesn’t know how much his boyfriend has heard of their conversation, and also he looks unfairly good, as always. He’s been out the whole morning to skate and see if he can find anything about Caleb’s whereabouts, but judging by the fact that he looks totally calm, it doesn't seem like he's had any success.

“What’ll be fine?” he asks, looking between the four of them, a slight if confused smile on his lips. His hair is tousled by the wind, and Alex wants nothing more than to cuddle with him and braid the chocolate coloured silky strands, but his chest feels tight, and his fingers can’t stay still.

“Uh- you know, everything. I hope. Well. I mean- okay, uhm-” Alex fumbles through his words, sees Willie’s eyebrows draw together in worry. He looks back at his friends, still on the couch, watching him. “Okay, out, you three.”

They don’t even make a fuss, just get up quickly. Julie gives him one of her warm encouraging smiles, Luke pats him on the shoulder before hurrying up so he can open the doors for Julie. Reggie puts a hand on his arm. “You got this,” he whispers.

Willie watches them go, then looks back at Alex. “Is everything okay?”

“Yeah, I guess. I just need to talk to you, so. Uhm. Can you please sit down, and just let me speak?” Alex’s chest is tight, and there’s a lump in his throat. He feels a knot right in the middle of his ribcage, like he always does when he gets nervous, and he doesn’t know what to do with his hands, so he fiddles with the drumstick again.

Willie moves, brushing their hands together as he walks past him, worry on his face and biting his lip, but he sits down on the couch, and crosses his arms, his thumb immediately brushing over the spot Alex has seen him rub when Willie gets uncomfortable or insecure, or they talk about getting stamped.

“Okay. Uhm. You know I have anxiety, right?” he starts. Willie nods. His dark brown eyes still search Alex’s face, looking for an answer for why Alex is behaving like this, probably. Alex starts pacing again.  
“Okay. Well. I need you to understand that it get’s worse than this. Like, a lot worse. And I need you to know how bad it can get, because I don’t want- I don’t want this-” he gestures between them. “To get too intense and for you to get annoyed by me or my anxiety.”

Willie nods, again. Alex stares at him for a long second. He’s kind of expected for Willie to start arguing with him now, about how that could never happen. His chest still is tight, and he needs to get all of this out, fast, because soon it’ll feel like can’t get the words out anymore, but he needs to.

“Okay. Okay, so.” he starts. Takes a deep breath. Stops, and looks at Willie, it’s now or never, really.  
“I don’t have much control over it, okay? I have days where I’m totally fine and then something tiny will happen and all of a sudden things go shit and I can’t concentrate and I get nervous and I pull away. And I won’t be able to tell you why. I have days where I wake up and everything is shit and breathing is hard and every tiny thing is just, too much, and I will not be emotionally available, and I will not be able to tell you why.”

He tries his best to put everything he wants to say into coherent sentences, words rushing out and tumbling like a river from it’s spring down the mountain, fast and finding new paths, somewhat unpredictable. Willie sits and listens, thumb having stilled over the spot on his arm. He watches Alex with an open expression, and nods softly.

“And I won’t always be just nervous or shy. I get snappy, I get irrationally angry and I’ll probably say mean things, and I have days where I despise myself so much that it won’t be fun to be around me. And where nothing really helps except for leaving me alone. I have panic attacks. And they get bad, and I might not be responsive and I want- no.” Alex stops his rambling again, to take another deep breath.  
“I need you to know that none of this is personal. I need you to know that this isn’t because I hate you, or dislike you, or don’t trust you. Because I do, even if I might say different things in the moment because my brain tells me everything is wrong and I can’t focus. And you can’t take this personally. You can’t take it personally, even if you do everything right but I still want Luke or Reggie when I’m having a panic attack, or I don’t want to touch you because it’s overwhelming, okay? I just- I need you to know that this is more than just me being nervous sometimes and that it gets ugly and unpleasant, and that it’s hard, sometimes.”

He stops, mostly done with what he wants to say. He feels relieved, to have it off his chest, to have it out in the open now, although his chest is still tight, because Willie might find all of this to be too much of a hassle to deal with, and why isn’t he saying anything? Is this him thinking about breaking up?  
Willie exhales a long breath, and looks up at Alex from where he’s still sitting. His eyes are still warm, and loving, and that look alone melts a tiny, tiny bit of the know it Alex’s ribs.

“Is it okay if I speak?” Willie asks, softly. Alex nods.  
“Thank you for being so open with me, first of all. It can’t have been easy to say all of that,” Willie gets up, slowly, while he speaks. “Look, I’m not going to pretend that I understand your anxiety, because I don’t. But that doesn’t mean I don’t understand what it means for you, and me, and everyone around us. I’ve been doing some research ever since I met you, in case you have a panic attack or a bad day, because I don’t want to be unprepared for it, and I’ve been talking to Reggie about ways that you’ve already tested and tried, when things get bad.”

He slowly makes his way to Alex, waiting, to see if it's okay for him to come close. It always is, Alex thinks. Or always has been, thus far. When he’s a foot away from him, Willie holds out his left hand, palm open and facing the ceiling, an invitation. He doesn’t ask, just continues to speak.

“I don’t think it’ll always be easy, because it would be unfair for it to be easy for me if it’s hard for you, but I’m aware of what it means that you have anxiety, and I’m prepared, I think. Tell me what you want me to do, and I’ll do it, I promise. Even if it means to not touch you for a week, or not to say anything and sit with you for hours, but I promise I will try my best to help you, the way you want and need me to.”  
Willie’s voice is soft but insistent, and warm, bright relief and affection floods Alex’s chest. He takes Willie’s hand, and the other smiles and squeezes his hand.

“We got this, yeah?” he asks. Alex can’t help the smile that spreads over his face. There’s still some pressure on his chest, that will probably stay there for a while, because it doesn’t go away in a matter of seconds, and just because he has a boyfriend now doesn’t mean it’ll magically disappear. But Willie seems to know that, and doesn’t expect him to stop being anxious. He squeezes back.

“Yeah, we got this.”

ii.  
They’ve been dating for three months and two days, and things are going well, Willie thinks.  
Caleb has at least left Nick’s body, but they haven’t relocated the fucker yet. He still doesn’t have his soul back, and there’s still guilt, for everything that has happened, gnawing at the back of his mind.  
But right now he doesn’t really care. Right now he’s lying on a blanket, with Alex’s head on his chest and their fingers tangled, the full moon bright and high above them, illuminating the world around them in a soft silvery light. Alex looks ethereal in this light, but then again he always does.

They’ve been doing well.  
They are doing well.  
Alex has had four panic attacks and a handful of very bad days, and they weren’t fun.  
They weren’t romantic, like some movies or stories make those moments out to be. Willie doesn’t even have the room in his head for romance when Alex is sobbing and struggling to breathe, and all he can do is stay in the same room, while Luke coaches Alex into a breathing rhythm with a soft voice. There’s nothing romantic about rambling for hours, and holding Alex’s hands so he doesn’t tear at his own skin, so Alex doesn’t spiral. Romance doesn’t enter his mind when Alex curls up in a dark room, hands over his ears because everything is too much. All that he can focus on in these moments is _Alex,_ and how to make him better.

And there are still enough days that are good, where he can think about romance, and kiss Alex, and dance with him to the music blaring from speakers in a park, the speaker’s owners blissfully unaware of their presence. There are still enough moments where he can focus on nothing but how much he loves Alex, even if he’s yet to say it. 

Moments like this one, in the dead of the night, with nobody but the moon and the stars and the evermoving sea as their witness.  
Moments like this, where all they do is press close together, soak in the other’s warmth and presence, in which Willie feels that if he tries hard enough, he can forget about everything that’s happened, and pretend he’s a normal teenager who’s just spending the night out and about with his boyfriend. Just, them, in the dead of night, even if they’re dead. 

Willie snorts, breaking the comfortable silence they’ve been in for the last… while. It’s easy to forget time around Alex.

“What’s so funny?” Alex asks, voice quiet and soft, and Willie can feel his face moving, looks away from the brilliant sky to see Alex with a raised brow and curious smile on his face.  
“I was just thinking.”

“How rare,” Alex says, and his smile broadens into a grin when Willie rolls his eyes.

“You’re hilarious, Hotdog. I was thinking, about how we’re dead, and it’s the middle of the night,” he says.  
Alex furrows his brows, thinking for a second. Willie waits for the realization for what’s coming to dawn in Alex’s eyes, before he says it. “You could say we’re the dead of the night.”

Alex groans, but there’s laughter in his voice and he lets go of Willie’s hand, to push his face away playfully. “I hate you,” he says, then uses his other arm to push himself up.

“Sure you do,” Willie answers, and leans up to kiss Alex.  
They’ve done this before. It’s not the most comfortable way to kiss, because Alex puts all of his weight on one arm, and Willie has to crane his neck a bit, but with the time they’ve spent together already, they know each other enough to break apart before it’s uncomfortable. 

Alex smiles down at him, then repositions himself, laying his cheek on Willie’s shoulder, slotting one hand against Willie’s, bringing the other up to play with some of his hair.  
With the moon so bright, Willie can see the long shadows on Alex’s cheekbones, cast by the elegant slope of his eyelashes.  
Sometimes he looks at Alex and thinks that he belongs in a museum, that his likeness should be set in stone and presented to the world.  
Sometimes he looks at Alex and thinks about how lucky he is to be the only one to see him in this way, in this light, in this moment.  
Sometimes Alex looks at him with an expression that mirrors the way Willie feels, and it makes his insides burn and it makes him feel so alive that everything around them fades.

“Do you know how far we can actually poof?” Alex asks, suddenly, and Willie raises an eyebrow. “Why?”  
“Reggie told me that he’s thinking about telling Julie and Luke, and that he’s going to poof to Australia to be dead in the outback if things go wrong. He wants to become one with the emus.”

Willie snorts, because yeah, that sounds like Reggie. “Does he know he doesn’t have to think about becoming one with the emus, because Julie and Luke are absolutely gone for him?”

Alex sighs and buries his face in Willie’s shoulder for a moment. “No, because they’re all huge fucking idiots. I told him so as well, but he wanted me to ask you just in case,” he says. 

Willie can’t help but giggle at the exasperation in Alex’s voice.  
It’s somewhat unbelievable that the three still haven’t figured out all of their feelings are reciprocated even though they have the most lovestruck expressions on their faces just looking at each other. Not that Willie is any better when it comes to Alex, but at least they’re together, so he’s allowed. 

“Well, yeah, I can answer that question,” he says. Alex peers up at him again. “Okay, come on, let's sit up, I gotta draw this,” Willie says, and lightly pushes at Alex until he complies with a groan.

Willie shimmies to the edge of the blanket, where the sand is soft and cool, but still has enough texture so he can draw in it and the images stay. “C’mere.”

He lifts his left arm up and Alex, still sitting in the middle of the blanket, looking disgruntled, crawls over, and tugs himself into Willie’s side. He wonders if he’ll ever get used to seeing the other boy making himself smaller and pressing into his side, especially when he’s a tiny bit sleepy.

“So, when we poof, normally, we think of where we want to go, and we get there. But it’s really only places we’ve been to before, right?” he starts. Alex snakes an arm around his waist and nods his yes.  
“Cool, so. We need to have an idea in our heads of what the place we want to go to. You can’t just say you want to go to like, Ohio, and not know exactly where.”

“I wouldn’t want to go to Ohio anyway,” Alex says, drily. Willie can’t help the short laugh that escapes him, and he presses a kiss to the side of Alex’s head.

“Let’s say you want to go to, I don’t know, the Sierra Nevada then. Donner Lake, let’s say, because I know you like these creepy documentaries Julie makes you watch because they scare her on her own. You need to have a very clear picture in your mind, of exactly where there you want to land, otherwise you’ll be fucked, and end somewhere in the middle.” Willie draws a little stick figure in the sand, and a lake with a mountain in the background. Or, well, tries, it’s hard though, in the sand. He adds a little arrow going from the stick figure to the lake.

“And you know that how?” Alex asks, and grins at Willie. “That’s not important right now, babe, I swear. Just trust me,” he says, and crosses out the arrow. He then draws what’s supposed to be a lightbulb over the person's head, but looks more like a misshapen lump.

“If you have a clear picture in mind, though, and know exactly where you want to go, where you want to end up, then it works.” He draws another arrow, from the lightbulb to the lake.

“Huh,” Alex says.

“Yeah, so, in theory, if you memorize enough places you want to go, or have your phone or a photo book with you, you can travel the whole world without ever stepping on a plane.” Willie adds some other scribbles in the sand, a house, and a little castle, a river. A second stick person, with longer hair.

“What the hell is that supposed to be,” Alex points at it, squinting.

“Me, you asshole. That’s us,” Willie says, shoving Alex lightly. The bout of laughter sounds soars above the sounds of the gently rolling waves. “I could take you anywhere, if you wanted. The top of Mt. Everest, for example.”

“Yeah, I don’t want to go there. Wait, have you been?” Alex leans aways from him slightly staring. Willie grins and shakes his head. “No, but I think I could if I wanted to. I’m just not the biggest fan of heights, and I’d bet it’s kinda spooky up there.”

Alex hums in agreement, then lets himself fall back, and pulls Willie down with him. “No travelling anywhere tonight. It’s nice here. And even though I can’t tell what any of these runes in the sand are supposed to be, you were very pretty while drawing them.”

Willie shuffles impossibly closer to Alex, now having changed positions so he’s the one with his head on the other boy’s chest. He puts his hand down, so his chin doesn’t dig into Alex’s ribs. “Was I now? Anything else you got from that?”

Alex rolls his eyes, but smiles, and his brows crinkle, and his eyes shimmer like the most precious gems Willie’s ever seen in the moonlight. “You’re good at explaining things, but we’ll never tell Reggie, because the idiot might try to flee the country even before confessing.”

“I’ll accept that,” Willie says, and pushes himself up to kiss Alex, who reciprocates happily.

iii.  
It’s been almost an entire year since they’ve started dating and things are going. Well.  
They’re doing great in their relationship, Willie thinks. They really are. But they’ve finally located Caleb and Willie has his soul back, but Caleb damn near snuffed him out before they got it, and hurt Julie by taunting her with her mother, and hurt Alex and Luke and Reggie. And the guilt that’s been this gnawing, reminding little thing at the back of his mind for the past year, that has been there but never too present, always small enough to be pushed away, it just explodes.

It’s been two days since they managed to defeat Caleb, to somehow force him to cross over (which was mostly Julie, because she, for some reason, has crazy powers that none of them can really explain).  
And Willie thinks, no, he _knows_ , he should be as happy as the others. Julie, Luke and Reggie finally got their shit together after another near death experience, and are just soaking in the joy of realizing they all can be together the way they wanted to for a while.  
Alex keeps looking at Willie, and just smiling, as if to himself, with such a soft look in his eyes it almost physically hurts Willie, because it’s _his_ fault, that they all almost vanished again, and it’s _his_ fault, that Alex screamed his throat raw for him, when Caleb almost vanished him from all planes of existence.

It’s been two days, and Willie is hiding from the others, because he doesn’t understand how they can all be so happy, and nice, and kind to him, if he’s the one that’s responsible for so much of their suffering. For some reason his breathing is too fast, and he feels like his heart is beating in his throat, even if it isn’t, and his mind can’t keep a hold on any other thought than that this is _his_ fault, and that he almost ruined everything.

He’s hiding, away from the Molina household, in which he was accepted not only by Alex and his friends, but the entire family, after they realized they could see him due to Alex’s connection to him. 

He’s hiding in the old room he used to live in, back at the Hollywood Ghost Club.  
The building feels weird, empty now, even though there are still more than enough ghosts milling about, not knowing what to do now that they have their soul back and the purpose they thought they had is lost.  
The room never felt like home in the way the small room he has at the Molina’s does. There he has barely enough room for a bed and a closet, and he shares it with Alex, which is definitely not something he minds and only allowed because Ray is knowledgeable enough to understand what the black ring on Willie’s right middle finger and the small flag pin on the denim jacket Alex gifted him means.  
This room here, is, well. About the same size, but the walls are bare concrete, and the bedding isn’t colourful, and he has nothing more than a jar of trinkets and the skateboard he died with. It’s cracked, right through the middle, having slid into traffic, but he felt it was important to keep it, back in the dark days after he died.

Willie hides there, consumed with guilt, and wondering why his chest just hurts, and breathing is getting so hard, when Alex finds him. He basically barrels through the door, already rambling before he’s even in the room.

“Willie! Holy shit, thank god you’re here, I’ve been so worried about you, because none of you knew where you’d gone and-” he stops.

The door shuts behind him. Willie tries his hardest to not cry, not show how everything feels like it’s a bit too much right now. Tries to focus on Alex, who stands before him with tousled hair, and bright eyes, and strong hands that he knows would try their best to hold him together right now.

“Hi- I’m sorry,” Willie manages to get out, his voice smaller than he'd like.  
Alex looks at him for a moment, worry seeping into his expression, as Willie continues to sit on his bed, and digs his thumb into the spot where he once broke an arm so bad the bone came through.

“Hey, Willie, can I touch you?” he asks, voice soft and tentative, his expression still worried.

“Why wouldn’t you be able to?” Willie asks back, confusion rushing in and drowning out the loud, screaming, painful guilt just for a moment. Alex musters him, his jaw tensing, and this is his fault, again, Alex is worried because of him, again, goddamnit.

“Can you breathe?” Alex asks, voice still quiet. Willie doesn’t understand where any of this is coming from. “What?”

“I think you might be having a panic attack. Or an anxiety attack. Either way, it’s nothing great, and I don’t want to make it worse.” Alex moves towards him cautiously as he speaks.  
Oh. That would explain things. Considering he has dealt with a fair share of Alex’s panic attacks now, he should have guessed that.

“Would it be okay if I get you home? I don’t think this place is good for you,” Alex holds out a hand, but he doesn’t sound demanding, or like it’s a command, the way Caleb used to when he said similar things.

“Alex-” Willie starts. Breathing is still hard, and he feels his eyes starting to burn. “I’m so sorry.”

Confusion bleeds into Alex’s expression now. “You’ve got nothing to be sorry for.”

“But I do!” And suddenly Willie is standing on his feet, and there’s anger, because why doesn’t Alex get it? That this is all his fault. Why does he have to be so goddamn nice and kind and understanding? It’s not fair. He should be angry with Willie, should think about all the pain he’s caused them all.

“Willie-” Alex starts.

“No, Alex, listen! I do, because all of this is my fault! If I hadn’t brought you and the guys to this stupid fucking club, if I had been more careful and stuck around, if I hadn’t agreed to working for Caleb, then none of this would have happened, okay?! You almost died again, twice. I almost made Julie mourn you three again, I wasn’t careful and almost died again, which would have caused you pain. This is all my fault,” Willie trails off, the yelling he’d had energy for just a moment before trailing off into a sob. He turns away from Alex who has a look of open shock on his face, and tries to remember how the breathing techniques go.

“Willie, can I touch you?” Alex asks again. Willie shrugs, not knowing if he wants to open his mouth, fearing he’ll yell again.  
But when Alex steps closer, tentative and unsure, he still reaches out a hand. Willie’s always liked touch, has always found it reassuring, and with Alex especially, it usually helps him calm down. Alex’s hand slides into his own, his fingers tangling with Willie’s.

“Willie, love, you don’t have to look at me, and I won’t touch you any further, if you don’t want me to, but I want you to listen to me, okay?” Alex says, and his voice is still quiet, still soft, but it’s strong and unwavering. Willie nods.  
“Good. Sweetheart, I know this isn’t going to help, really, because when our brains tell us shitty, untrue things we still believe them. But everything you just said is absolute bullshit.”

Willie turns at that. There are tears glistening in Alex’s eyes, but his jaw is set and he looks so sure of himself, so sure of what he’s saying, that it’s hard to protest.  
“None of this is your fault, okay?” Alex asks, and he locks eyes with Willie.

“But-”

“No. No buts, Willie. It isn’t, plain and simple. Yes, you brought us to the Club. Because you wanted to help. Caleb was a manipulative piece of shit, that managed to get us alone, because he knew you wouldn’t let us get stamped. And yes, you avoided us afterwards, because you were afraid of facing us, and afraid of what Caleb might do if you disobeyed his orders. Which we completely understand now,” Alex steps closer, reaching his other hand out to grip Willie’s tight.

“You explained what had happened, and did everything in your power to help us, to make us forgive you, as if we hadn’t done that the second you told us the truth about how much power Caleb had. And you risked your existence, your chance at ever crossing over, to give us that opportunity,” Alex’s voice starts to tremble, but he keeps going, and Willie forgets how to breathe, not for the feeling of crushing guilt, but because he’s never seen Alex look this intense, this sure, this _mad_ .

“Everything bad that has happened to us since we died and came back as ghosts happened to us because of Caleb. Not because of you, because of Caleb. You didn’t stamp and try to kill us for not joining your stupid house band. You didn’t possess Nick, or produce an image of Julie’s mom, you certainly didn’t almost kill yourself. That was all Caleb. And I know your guilt will tell you different things, and will lie and be cruel, but you’re one of the best things that has happened to all of us, ever. Okay?” Alex’s voice has never held such rage, even if it's controlled and quiet, as it does in the moments he talks about Caleb. His grip on Willie’s hands is tight, but not uncomfortable. A tether to this world, that keeps Willie from spiralling.

“Alex-” he starts, tears now streaming down his face. He doesn’t know how he’ll ever be deserving of a boyfriend, or just friend, like this, after everything he’s done.

“Willie, _sweetheart_ , please don’t try to argue with me. I know it’s hard, and your emotions are okay, and it’s fine that you feel them the way you do, even if I disagree. But I love you. And Luke loves you, and Reggie does too. They constantly call you the brother they wished they had growing up. Julie loves you, because you do your make-up with her and because you’re funny and kind. Carlos thinks you’ve hung the moon ever since you showed him some tricks on the skateboard. I know you feel guilty, and these feelings are going to take a long time to go away, if they ever do, but we all love you, in different ways. Okay? Can you believe that, at least?” Alex’s voice finally cracks, and tears run their tracks down his cheeks. 

Willie is a whirlwind of emotions that he can’t sort through right now, But he can focus on some things.  
On Alex. Stellar, unbelievable Alex right here in front of him.  
The bed in his small, yellow room back at the Molina’s.  
The fact that Reggie’s birthday is coming up, and he’s been learning how to play the guitar with Luke’s help.

He nods. “I can do that, I think.”

Alex smiles, soft and still worried, but it reaches his eyes. “Good. Let’s go home.”

iv.  
It’s been two and a half years since they started dating, and things are going great.  
Right now, things have never been better. Alex almost bounces his way into the studio, where Willie is sitting, listening to music, and painting. He picked that up in the last year, and if Alex weren’t literally his boyfriend, he'd probably pay tons of money to see the other work.

Willie looks up, when Alex enters. “You’re in a good mood today,” he says, and grins.

“I have news,” Alex announces, and crosses the room to sling his arms around Willie’s neck, pressing a quick kiss to his lips.

“Okay?” Willie sounds confused, but happy nonetheless, and he drops the pen he’s been using to outline onto the couch table, wrapping his arms around Alex’s waist in return.  
They fit together now, knowing each other well enough that they don’t have to ask before touching each other anymore. It’s similar to the way Alex and Luke and Reggie are with each other. They’re comfortable and they trust in one another, and they know each other well enough they rarely have to ask things anymore. Except today.

“So you know how Julie has been trying to figure out a way to make us actual living humans again?” Alex asks. Willie looks up at him, some strands of hair out of the messy bun he tries to keep it tamed in. He nods, slowly.  
“Well, she did. For all of us. We could all be humans again, if we wanted to.” Alex stops for a moment, contemplating. He doesn’t know if Willie actually wants this, the possibility always so far out of their reach that it felt too cruel to taunt themselves with something they might never have. 

But now it’s here, and it’s almost too good to be true.  
Alex knows, deep down, that if Willie doesn’t want to come back to life, he won’t either. He loves his friends so much it hurts, but the same way they want to come back to life so they can actually live with Julie, he would stay dead and a ghost, to stay with Willie.  
The three of them know this. They’ve talked about it before, between tearstained pillows in dark nights, and they all agreed on what would happen should the possibility arise.

But there are things he wants to do, with Willie, with the others, that he can’t if he doesn't actually exist in the mortal world.  
He wants to dance in the rain, and climb mountains, and feel the earth’s elements thrown at him instead of just seeing them.  
He wants to scream and hear the echoes come back, and he wants to laugh so hard he can’t breathe and actually need the air he’s not getting.  
He wants to eat and drink, and do so, so many things he can't do if he's a ghost.

But he’d follow Willie, if it came down to it. He’d spend a lifetime with Willie, figuring out their unfinished business, so they could cross over when the others have lived the long and happy life they deserve.  
Willie’s still looking at him, with a soft smile and his kind, warm eyes, and Alex kisses him again, a reassurance that he’s here and will stay here. 

“I won’t if you don’t want to, but imagine what we could do, love. We could travel the world as a band, because we’d age, and you could sell your artwork or become the next Tony Hawk. We could cook together and you could introduce me to all the foods my parents never let me eat, and we could go to Pride and actually be there. We could get a dog or a cat, and we could take tons of photographs, or become famous dancers. We could- we could actually live and-” he pauses, only for a second, because it’s not like the thought is new.  
“We could get married, maybe, sometime in the future. We could do so many things, even if we don’t have cool ghost powers anymore. I’d follow you anywhere you go, dead or alive, I promise, but we can dare to dream now, Willie.”

Willie smiles, and cups Alex’s face with his hands, pulling him down into a soft kiss.

“You didn’t even need to explain yourself, Alex. You’ve known the answer the second you stepped in here, the second Julie found a way. It’s always been clear.”

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading!  
> i really hope you enjoyed because i had fun writing it, but i am also a wildly swinging pendulum that goes between thinking i'm modern day shakespeare and the worst writer to ever hit this planet so, y'know.  
> At this point I feel like i'm going insane please @netflix renew jatp or i will have a mental breakdown  
> If you feel like talking/yelling, about jatp or in just general, you can find me on Tumblr as [on-irratia](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/on-irratia)  
> have a good day/ night/ rest of time! :D


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